AbstractWebsters New World Dictionarydefines competency as“a condition of being competent or qualified.”Both technical and professional competencies, which imply attainment of specific skills/knowledge, are required by health professionals. How does an allied health professional attain the required competencies and how does one assess the attainment of technical competency in particular? We decided to use the technique of phase training in a pilot study to teach/evaluate students in the University of Texas, School of Allied Health Sciences, Program in Histotechnology, in the operation of the Tissue-Tek I11 Embedding System.